Devil Inside (8 page)

             
Levi led her to a black SUV and opened the passenger door for her.  Absurdly, at a time like this, she wondered where the truck came from.  She hadn’t seen him driving anything other than his motorcycle in the month that she had known him.  Her brain was still trying to hash this out as he firmly helped her into the seat and shut the door after making sure that she was fully inside.  She could smell the newness of the leather and plastic of the interior.  Numbly, she tried to remember what you were supposed to do for someone going into shock.  Levi jumped into the driver’s seat and without hesitation, started the vehicle.  He floored the gas pedal, leaving a trail of rubber as he pulled away from the curb.

Harley was amazed at how calm she felt during the whole car ride.  She knew that it was a false calm, however.  The shock had done something to her senses—it made everything seem surreal and fake.  Her heart thudded dully and her lungs pushed air out and pulled air in.  Her skin buzzed and her eyes couldn’t quiet focus on anything.  The speed at which Levi was driving made her vision problems worse.  Everything blurred past the windows and she couldn’t figure out where they were or where they were going.  She could hear the muted grinding of the tires on the pavement and the sound vibrated through the car making the numbness that she felt even worse.  She slowly looked at Levi, trying to make sense of him even being there.

Levi was dressed all in black—black cargo pants and black military boots.  His black shirt was long-sleeved and form fitting.  She could see the black straps of the holster that held the huge knife at his back, they wrapped around his shoulders like gun holsters in the movies.  He wore black leather gloves and she could hear them creak as he flexed his grip against the steering wheel.  She could see that they were slightly discolored and refused to think about what was staining them.  Feeling her eyes on him, he glanced her way.  The look in his eyes was one of regret and sadness and anger but he didn’t speak and for that she was grateful.

Harley looked out the window again, trying to figure out where they were going. 
Police
.  Reason tried to force its way into her brain.  But instincts slammed that door quickly shut.  Going there would require thinking about what had happened.  On some level her brain knew that she couldn’t handle that yet.  She kept trying to make out the street signs as they sped past them.  She desperately wanted to know where they were.  The roads were familiar but they weren’t clicking into place.  Each time her mind was getting a grip on the street they would be too far away for her brain to finish before it tried to focus on the next street.  Unable to bare the street signs any longer closed her eyes.  But they snapped open again when she felt something on her arm.  It was sticky and clung to her.   She knew what the red stuff was, but her mind again slammed that door shut before finishing the thought as well.  She began counting the street signs to distract herself from trying to figure out their names.  Eventually, the street signs grew farther and farther apart and the trees grew thicker.  As they passed large sprawling fields she realized that they were driving away from Lexington.  They were most likely going east because they had not gone through the downtown area to reach the farms to the west of the city.

It felt like they had been driving for hours when Levi finally slowed the truck down and turned into the driveway of a small white house.  They were well away from the city and she hadn’t seen any other houses for several miles.  There were too many trees, clumped too close together for them to still be amidst the sprawling, pastured horse farms.  Instead, they were surrounded by a natural forest, approaching a house that looked as if it was someone’s weekend getaway.  They hadn’t spoken for the entire ride and the sounds of the engine and the road had filled up the silence.  Levi had left her to process the events in her own way while he kept his attention on the road and made sure that no one followed them. 

As they approached the quaint house Levi drove around a path to the back and parked so that the vehicle wouldn’t be seen from the road.   Without saying a word he shut the engine off and climbed out of the truck.  He quickly walked to her side of the SUV; Harley’s eyes followed his every movement.  She was in awe of him at the moment.  She had known that he was involved in security, but on some level she pictured that as being the guy in a uniform hanging out at the front of a store.   But the way that he was dressed, the way that he handled that guy—the fight—she was now picturing something much more military—something more lethal.

Levi opened her door and held out his hand silently.  Harley looked at the outstretched hand for a moment and when she saw that he had taken off the gloves she reached out to take his hand.  She paused when she saw how much her hand was shaking compared to how steady his was.  He grasped her hand in his and helped her from the truck.  Her legs still seemed numb and clumsy and she scuffed her feet multiple times as he led her to the back door of the house.  She looked into the dark woods that surrounded them but couldn’t see anything in the shadows.  Everything was quiet and she couldn’t hear any animal sounds.  It was as if they had gone quiet out of respect for the seriousness of the situation.

              Levi unlocked the door and held it open for her and she stepped inside, pausing just past the doorway.  The house was pitch black and the lack of light from outside left her completely blind in the unfamiliar room she had stepped into.  She stood motionless and tense.  Nerves still on edge she fought against the fear that something was going to burst from the darkness to attack her.  Levi flicked on a light as he shut and locked the door and Harley blinked against the sudden brightness.  Her senses were still overly sharp and it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust.

             
The house was one good sized open room that had a living room area and kitchen combined and could probably be better called a cottage.  Two doors off to the side must have led to a bedroom and bathroom.  This cottage looked much more lived in than the house Levi rented.  There still wasn’t anything personal about it, but it had more furniture and looked like someone had actually spent significant amount of time here.  Turning, Harley regarded Levi, who was standing quietly behind her.  Neither of them spoke for a moment.  Levi watched her carefully.  She looked down at herself.  Her right side—the right leg of her jeans, her right arm and the right side of her sweater were splashed with blood.  In the bright light of the cabin she wasn’t able to deny what it was that was slowly drying into a stiff stickiness.  She looked from herself back to Levi.  She could slowly feel the shell that the shock had built begin to crack.

             
Something must have shown on her face finally because Levi stepped closer to her and wrapped his arms around her.  All the air whooshed out of her lungs and she gasped for breath.  She stood there with her arms at her side, underneath Levi’s strong steady arms and tried to make sense of what was happening.

             
“What happened?” she asked.  “Who—who were those men?  Why were you there?”  With each question she came closer and closer to hyperventilating.  The words left her mouth in an uncontrolled whoosh of air.  It felt like her lungs had sprung a leak.  She had to stop before she lost her last bit of control.  She fought to breath calmly.

             
“We can talk about it when you calm down a little.  It’s a complicated story.”  He spoke, the calmness of his voice grated at Harley’s already raw nerves.  It did seem fair or right for him to be so calm when she felt like she was about to burst apart.

             
“When I calm down?” repeated bewildered.  “I can’t calm down!  Jaime—she was the only family—," she broke off unable to go there yet.  “We have to call the police!  That man—I—he—,” she began to lose her breath again.

             
“Breathe, breathe, breathe,” Levi repeated soothingly and slowly.  Some part of her knew he was right.  She had to calm down or she wouldn’t be able to think rationally.  Harley pulled away from Levi and began to pace in circles around the main room of the cottage.  As she walked she forced herself to take deep slow breaths.  Levi watched her silently leaning against the stove, waiting on her to regain her composure.

             
When she finally stopped pacing several minutes later, Harley sat at the small dining table that separated the kitchen area from the living area.  Seeing that she was finding calm, Levi opened a cabinet and removed a bottle of
Jack Daniels
and two glasses.  He sat opposite her and opened the bottle, Harley watched him poor a few swallows into each glass.  He pushed one towards her and she accepted it gratefully.  Now that the numbness that came along with the shock was wearing off she needed something to help numb the feelings that were threatening to overwhelm her.  She wanted to take the edge off as much as she could before the walls finally came crashing down.  She took a deep breath and swallowed half of what was in her glass.  She shuddered and blew a shaky breath to relieve the fire that followed the liquor down.  She could feel the heat of the drink spread through her limbs and begin to warm the chill that radiated from inside her.  Levi drank half of his drink and turned the glass slowly between his hands.

             
“OK.  Talk to me,” Harley prompted.  “What the fuck was that?  Who were they?  What did they want?  And where are we?”

             
Levi took a deep breath, “One question at a time.  I’m not entirely sure what they wanted,” he admitted.

             
Harley felt her hackles raise and she slammed her fist on the table, “Bullshit!  You know SOMETHING,” she insisted.  “Who are you?”  She knew it wasn’t fair to be this mad at Levi.  He had helped save her life but she couldn’t help but take her frustration out on him.  She was suddenly, painfully, aware of how little she knew about him.

             
Levi looked at her steadily.  “I guess a better question would be WHAT am I?” he responded looking away from her to stare out into the blackness beyond the kitchen window.

             
Harley watched him bewildered.  “What does that mean?”  Harley braced herself for the answer.  CIA, NSA some other set of letters she had never heard of, surely. 
How in the world did this actually happen?  This wasn’t some movie.  Stuff like this doesn’t actually happen in real-life,
Harley thought to herself.  Not for the first time that night she wondered if she had lost her mind or had been drugged without her knowledge.

He rubbed his face with both hands and looked very tired.  He took a deep breath sitting back in the chair and folded her arms across his chest.  “I’m a part of a group called the Nocte Preasidio.  It’s Latin for Night Guard.”  He held eye contact with her and she refused to look away.  The look on his face was of calm confidence.  She could tell he wasn’t eager to tell this story, but judging by the look on his face he was laying it all out there.  She sensed a challenge behind his narration.  As if he was challenging her to believe the story he was going to tell her.

              “And that is what exactly?”  Harley forced herself to be patient.  She felt like they should be doing something, not sitting here and talking.  They needed to talk to the police.  They would want to know what happened.  She would need to explain how she got away.  She didn’t know what she was going to tell them when they asked her why she left.  She felt the sharp pain of the reality of what had happened.  It was pushing at the cracks in the barrier.  It wouldn’t hold much longer and she would have to face what had happened.  Every time she came close to acknowledging it her breath caught in her throat and she felt a sharp pain slice at her stomach that sucked her breath away.  She struggled to deal with one thing at a time and she was getting more agitated because this was adding one more thing to all that she was having to process.

Growing more frustrated, Harley waited without saying anything, her jaw clenched painfully.  “You are going to have to have an open mind and hear me out,” he began hesitantly.  “And you are probably still going to have more questions than answers when I’m done.” 
That’s a dead giveaway something big and crazy is coming.
  She watched him warily.

             
“OK…” she responded cautiously, trying to be patient and let him tell his story in his own time.  The longer she could focus on his story, the longer she had before she had to think about what had happened.

             
“The Nocte Preasidio is a group that hunts—polices—the worst of the worst.”

             
“I’ve never heard of them,” Harley answered shortly.

             
“Well, we aren’t exactly a part of the general public.”

             
“You’re what?  Like special forces or something?”  She figured he must be some sort of agent one that hunted the worst kind of criminals. 
That’s the logical explanation, right?
She asked herself.

             
“Well—something like that,” Levi answered.  He continued to hold eye contact with her and Harley again felt like he was challenging her to believe him.  It was as if he was testing her to see how long she would continue to listen to him.  Harley could handle a lot of things but right now she needing to focus on his story and not the events of the night.  She wasn’t ready for anything else yet.